Friday, April 18, 2008

Comic of the month: Piled Higher and Deeper

If you are not in grad school, nor ever have been, you might want to skip this post. Never done any research, but you are a big geek anyway? Well, hang on just a second because you just might enjoy this too.

Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD. comics) is an online comic strip about, yes, you might have already guessed it, PhD. students. I first discovered this comic strip while I was in grad school, and I have been reading it ever since.I heart how it makes fun of academic research and being in grad school. It paints such an accurate picture of the going-ons, from the perfecting procrastination into an art form, to the totally pointlessness of the research that is being done.

I especially love how once in a while they focus on the contrast between how you are supposed to do things, and what people really do. Like the scientific method vs. the actual method.Anyone familiar with what goes on in grad school or at universities in general, will recognize and appreciate the stories told in this comic strip. If you are not familiar with any of this and the academic world might seem a bit alien and weird to you, you get the right idea, because it is.

Academia is a really freaking weird world that often has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on in the real world. PhD. comics reflects how I feel about it most days. Yet I also heart it, and I could not imagine myself working anywhere else.